AOC’s Jerry Pfab seems to want to add insult to injury….

From the You’ve got to be f—ing kidding me file comes this story out of the depths of the Death Star’s satellite office in Sacramento. You might recall that our courts are crumbling and are otherwise falling apart due to a lack of facilities maintenance. In fact, the total unfunded facility maintenance liability to California’s judicial branch and the 500 or so buildings is over 2.5 billion dollars….. just a little more than what the Long Beach Court will cost. A worker in Hayward Hall of Justice recently outlined how when it was raining the facilities management unit was kind enough to distribute buckets and garbage cans to catch the rain water leaking through the roof.

Of course Hayward Hall of Justice just needs a new roof…. and now a new ceiling and major HVAC system repairs as well. And if it keeps on leaking it will exponentially multiply the damages done to this heavily trafficked public building. So it was with some elation that we would learn exactly where the roof money for the Hayward Hall of Justice is going. Of course, the money we’re talking about could be for nearly any court experiencing years of deferred maintenance but we’re going to pick this building because it’s right down the street from this office.

Now if I had 2.5 billion dollars in unfunded deferred maintenance and had 50+ people at my disposal to manage facilities repairs, I would be issuing them tools and telling them to go fix stuff before the peasants in the courts burn our house down with complaints.

But Jerry Pfab is a visionary.

Jerry has learned through all of his years at the AOC that if you want to bamboozle them with bullshit you find a way to get presented an award of excellence for your operations and let the award speak for itself.

It helps blunt the criticisms that you’re one of the worst facilities managers of all time and the balance of your leadership team isn’t much better. After all, quality and excellence is a measure of what you do and how you do it…. not what you don’t do.

Now we all know facilities maintenance isn’t as sexy as new courthouses and flashy architecture so there isn’t a whole lot of awards for this field. Sure, they can issue awards to the visionaries who built CCMS, they can bestow architectural honors for the visionaries that built long beach. But there is not a whole lot of awards out there for spending a thousand dollars to lower a flag to half-mast one day, and another thousand to raise it the next day. There isn’t a whole lot of awards out there for knowingly employing unlicensed contractors from the Oregon border to the Mexican border and paying them $2,000.00 apiece to change light bulbs for more energy efficient ones. As far as we know, there is no awards for getting estimates to pave private parking lots and we’re not too familiar with the award that permits a 4 million dollar building management system to degrade to utter uselessness in a period of 18 months.

So our visionary has to go elsewhere and knows for a fact that (trial court) money can indeed buy him love.

For over two years now, our visionary has spearheaded an effort to essentially buy both an award and recognition for excellence in operations. You might recall the early days of FMU where one had to call the customer support center in Sacramento to compose and approve a computerized work order before any person could be paid a few hundred dollars to empty an ash tray in front of the court? You might also remember the early days where the work orders were blanket with a $2,000.00 limit for even the smallest of things? Well you will all be elated to learn that nearly every member in the facilities management unit is involved in developing policies, procedures and workflow charts to that they can chart the path to continuous quality improvement and excellence in operations.

They’re after a “Baby Baldrige” better known here as a CAPE or California Award for Performance Excellence and even the facilities maintenance rank and file finds it incredulous.

” It’s a strategic planning effort simply for strategic planning sake. They go to seminars, hire consultants, create workflow diagrams and process charts instead of actually working on the work of facilities maintenance. While courthouses crumble they make staff sit through long hours of meetings (even flying people in to Sacramento to sit through them in person) to listen to these workflow processes instead of actually doing work! It’s truly mind blowing. The goal is to be able to say they are among the finest award-winning organizations in the state.

Few recognize its basically an award you subsidize by paying $1,895.00 to participate and dedicating staff and consulting dollars to filling out forms, completing reports, flowcharts and feedback surveys.”

This isn’t the prestigious presidential Malcolm Baldrige award. This is a private company that provides mainly consulting services whose consultants later choose the award recipients.

Sounds like an order from Commander Jahr of the Death Star. The beatings will continue until morale and your tarnished image improves.

As some wise person has said numerous times on this blog, “you just can’t make this stuff up”.

There’s nothing wrong in setting a high goal for one’s organization, but this sounds like the AOC is more interested in the goal of obtaining the award than it is in actually providing good customer service. It smacks of a vainglorious pursuit designed to bring credit to individual high level managers rather than a sudden realization that the service provided to date to individual courts sucks.

Looks like Courthouse News and Bill Girdner have joined the chorus of “Won’t Be Fooled Again.”

Published today, Wednesday, February 6, from Courthouse News Service, by Bill Girdner, and, as always from Girdner, well worth the read:

Trojan Horse
By BILL GIRDNER

I asked a trial judge the other day if he thought California’s Administrative Office of the Courts had been reformed, as judicial leaders proclaim.

“Not a bit,” was his answer. “In fact their position has hardened.”

A recent experience on the press side says he’s right.

During the stewardship of former AOC director William Vickrey, a man viscerally disliked by many trial judges, Courthouse News commented on a trial court manual written by Vickrey’s staff.

Our comment said that newly filed court documents should be openly and immediately accessible to the press. We had run into consistent delays in the few trial courts that had adopted a ruinously expensive and cumbersome software pushed by the director.

Vickrey’s answer was that court documents are “pre-filed” until the bureaucrats have processed them, an increasingly lengthy set of tasks that often ends with posting them online for sale.

But “pre-filed” was a made-up concept. The cases are in fact filed when they cross the counter and are stamped — which is before all that processing.

To give you an idea of how long “processing” can stretch out, in Sacramento Superior, those tasks are currently taking one month.

Imagine a journalist trying to write a news story on an election or a ball game one month after the event.

It is old news by then, a piece of history.

So that exchange took place in 2010, before the state Auditor revealed financial mismanagement at the administrative office and its $500 million software project had to be junked.

Vickrey then retired and his longtime lobbyist Curt Child became the head of operations last year. A committee of judges recommended hundreds of changes, staff was cut back, and the agency was said to be reformed.

Now to the present.

The administrative office is proposing e-filing rules that are being pushed by the very same administrators who pushed the financially disastrous and now abandoned software.

Lo and behold. Inserted into those rules is a Trojan Horse.

It takes the form of a new definition. A document is “officially filed,” according to the new rules, only after “processing” and “reviewing.”

Processing and review is entirely in the hands of the bureaucrats. Could be a day, could be two days, could be a month.

The new definition has no stated purpose, but its potential is clear. It can be used to deny press access until a document is “officially filed” and thus an “official record.”

Based on the similarity in Vickrey’s attitude on press access three years ago, and the AOC’s attitude now, I don’t see a reformed outfit.

It could still be run by Vickrey who said new cases are “pre-filed” until they are processed. Same idea, slightly different words.

Now, all this gamesmanship reminded me of something.

Los Angeles Judge Lance Ito has been banging away on the judicial leadership in California to reveal the truth behind an old gambit.

In 2009, the AOC tried to railroad through the Legislature a little change in wording that had big consequences. The changed wording would have taken away the power of trial judges to vote on their presiding judge and pick their local court clerk.

It was placed into the legislative sessions’s trailer bill, the kind of bill that would revolt the public if they ever saw how it worked. A trailer bill is a furious round of horse-trading, with no deliberation, tied to passage of the yearly budget.

That trailer bill provision was also a Trojan Horse.

It was pushed quietly into a much larger measure and it would have undermined the power of trial judges to elect their leader and run their courthouse.

The closest that Ito and other trial judges could get to the underlying story was an admission that the language in the trailer bill originated with a second-rung staffer in the AOC’s lobbying office.

It defies any political reality to say a second-rung staffer was in sole charge of a sweeping proposal that would abrogate the traditional political and administrative powers of California trial judges.

Ito refers to the matter as “a continuing cover-up.”

The chain of command above that staffer ran through Child, then head lobbyist, and from him up to the former director, Vickrey. While Vickrey no longer heads the agency, Child is now the head of operations and many other positions of power, including general counsel, remain in the same hands.

And the tactics have not changed.

The Trojan Horse pushed into the trailer bill bears the same markings as the Trojan Horse wheeled into the efiling rules.

The goal is very similar, to extend the bureaucracy’s control, first over the trial judges and now the press.

The tactic is the same, to do so through a quiet insertion of new wording into a larger omnibus proposal.

This whole pre-filed stuff is the biggest bunch of crapola. If it takes so frickin long to process, why not let the press review the filed let me say PUBLIC document until then? Who makes this shit up? I cannot fathom any reason why a court want to wait until a document is processed to deem it filed. Well excuse me but many documents are time sensitive and cannot wait a month to be processed. I don’t understand how a court could operate this way. Only the AOC could make this shit up of course, since they know nothing about trial court operations. You go Bill G, keep pounding on this one, unbelieveable.

You know, Flea, AOC leadership openly brags that they can do whatever they want, because there is no one to stop them. And so, far they’ve been rigfht. And the AOC makes this stuff up with the full knowledge, consent, and blessing of the Office of the Chief Justice and the controlling members of the Judicial Council, This “pre-filed” crapola is a perfect example of that strategy. And until and unless the press takes them to court, “pre-filed” will become the order of the day, and to hell with the First Amendment.

This is nothing more than a pathetic attempt to focus attention on budget cuts by creating artificial “pain” for those who care. It’s the same strategy as the National Park Service perennially threatening to close the Washington Monument if their budget is cut. “Just give us more money, and we promise we won’t close the Monument.” Except in the case of the California Courts, it’s “…just give us more money and we promise we’ll let you see public court documents in a timely fashion”.

It’s complete bullshit. There is no good reason why public court documents, once in the possession of the court, cannot immediately be made available to the press and general public. The Federal Courts have and continue to suffer severe budget cuts and somehow they manage to provide immediate access to documents. So can the California Courts. They just aren’t properly motivated. I hope the press keeps hammering them…maybe they’ll find the motivation through the “court of public opinion” or by a decision from a court of competent jurisdiction.

In a perfect world, courts should be able to scan any case presented to any court into a stable version of a locally installed case management system and have it online before the customer leaves the counter.

As long as the image of the forms are different, they can auto-recognize and auto sort without the use of bar codes. This is the way banks and insurance companies move and manage millions of documents every day.

Keep on dogging them Bill G. They want to continue to use the CCTC in Arizona and that is what these reworded barriers are all about because it is impossible to scan and transmit that much data over a thousand miles of telephone line.

Keep on dogging them Bill G. They want to continue to use the CCTC in Arizona and that is what these reworded barriers are all about because it is impossible to scan and transmit that much data over a thousand miles of telephone line as fast as can be accomplished over a local area network

February 6, 2013
New Judicial Branch Task Force to Develop Strategic Plan for Court Technology
Group will work in partnership with courts and branch stakeholders

SAN FRANCISCO—The Judicial Council of California announced the members of a new task force charged with addressing and making recommendations on the governance, strategy, and financial support for judicial branch technology. The council’s new Technology Planning Task Force will work in partnership with the courts and with input from branch stakeholders to:

• Develop a plan for technology governance within the branch;

• Devise a tactical plan for technology that defines the steps needed to achieve the goals defined in the strategic plan;

• Collaborate with the courts to develop administrative and technical guidelines;

• Identify and promote opportunities for court collaboration on technological issues; and

“A comprehensive and collaborative technology plan update and redesign, grounded in the technology needs of the courts, is the key to branch technology progress and funding,” said Santa Barbara Judge James E. Herman, who will chair the new task force. “The success of the planning project is grounded in the broad coalition of constituencies represented by the task force membership, including presiding judges, court executive officers, court information officers, lawyers, and the Judicial Council’s Technology Committee and Court Technology Advisory Committee.”

Following the Judicial Branch Technology Summit, which took place October 23-24, 2012, Chief Justice Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye authorized the creation of this new task force, which will report directly to the Judicial Council’s broader Technology Committee. The members of the task force were appointed February1, 2013, and their terms expire February 1, 2014.

New Judicial Branch Task Force to Develop Strategic Plan for Court Technology
Group will work in partnership with courts and branch stakeholders…
‘The success of the planning project is grounded in the broad coalition of constituencies represented by the task force membership, including presiding judges, court executive officers, court information officers, lawyers, and the Judicial Council’s Technology Committee and Court Technology Advisory Committee.’”

This is downright terrifying. The masters of doubling-down just keep escalating to quadrupling-down and beyond. The composition of the “broad coalition” is meaningless when the end result is already determined. NOTHING GOOD WILL COME OF IT. But in order to justify their bloated and incompetent self-perpetuation, they just create another meaningless committee, throw out a highfalutin and convoluted quote, and carry on with business as usual: Pretend as if you’re doing something important and invaluable, that only the AOC/JC can do, by creating another brilliant committee.

These people have no shame. We already knew that. And it continues to work for them. Therefore proving their core belief and the foundation on which they continue to survive: Shamelessness is next to Godliness. Apparently the Guv and the Legislature respect this tenet and continue to stand back in awe.

Yeah, and Delilah, you can just guess how representative the members of this new useless committee are, too. The article quoted doesn’t mention specific names, but I’ll betcha they’re the same bunch of sycophants that brought us the $500,000,000 CCMS debacle. You can bet it won’t include anyone who has spoken out against the outrageous waste and unconscionable malfeasance that it represented!!!

It appears that a group of competent court technology professionals was poised to rip CCMS redux right out of the grip of the AOC by running their case management systems locally.

Ten bucks says this new committee led by this guy is staffed by the usual suspects as a majority and that they’ll pick the most submissive technology professionals they can find in the courts to push this whole CCMS thing back into the CCTC so the AOC can once again enjoy clawbacks and control.

Perhaps you’re right, JusticeCalifornia. But when one recognizes an evildoer and points a sword at their chest, and when the villain laughs in your face and keeps wielding his weapon and dares you by saying, “What are you gonna do about it?” it’s time to plunge the sword directly through the heart and no longer take peripheral measures that punish other than the intended target and culprit. Unless the collateral damage that ensues while you hesitate is as acceptable it to you as it is to the villain.

Here are some serious questions, open to all, and maybe especially directed to cj/judicial council/aoc supporters. This is your chance to plead your case. Because we all know members of all three branches are reading the posts on this website. Speak now, or forever hold your peace.

1. What about the branch has gotten better as a result of Tani Cantil Sakauye’s efforts since she became Chief Justice? (We are not talking about anything that was virtually forced upon her by the other two branches of government.)

2. What Ron George policies and/or priorities have changed since Tani Cantil Sakauye became Chief Justice?

3. What evidence exists supporting any notion that the majority of the members of the judicial branch have faith in the current cj/jc/aoc leadership system in general?

4. What evidence exists supporting any notion that the majority of members of the executive branch have faith in the current cj/jc/aoc leadership system in general?

5. What evidence exists supporting any notion that the majority of the members of the legislative branch have faith in the current cj/jc/aoc leadership system in general?

6. What evidence exists supporting any notion that the majority of the members of the judicial branch support the judicial branch funding priorities of the current cj/jc/aoc?

7. What evidence exists supporting any notion that the majority of the members of the executive branch support the judicial branch funding priorities of the current cj/jc/aoc?

8. What evidence exists supporting any notion that the majority of the members of the legislative branch support the judicial branch funding priorities of the current cj/jc/aoc?

9. What evidence exists supporting any notion that the majority of the members of the judicial branch support the judicial branch funding practices of the current cj/jc/aoc?

10. What evidence exists supporting any notion that the majority of the members of the executive branch support the judicial branch funding practices of the current cj/jc/aoc?

11. What evidence exists supporting any notion that the majority of the members of the legislative branch support the judicial branch funding practices of the current cj/jc/aoc?

The Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) is the staff agency of the Judicial Council, the policy-making body for the state court system. The AOC serves the Chief Justice, the Judicial Council, and the courts for the benefit of all Californians by advancing leadership and excellence in the administration of justice that continuously improves access to a fair and impartial judicial system.

The Director for the AOC Judicial Branch Capital Program Office provides expert leadership and oversight managing the daily operations and administration of planning, organizing, implementing, and reviewing all activities related to new court construction. Leading a complex, technical organization, this senior facilities executive administers a $6 billion capital program, and an experienced staff of approximately 60 employees. The position is available in either San Francisco or Sacramento, California.
.
Responsibilities
• Responsible for planning, budgeting, design, and construction to ensure the successful delivery of the Judicial Branch’s capital program;

• Directs the development of policies and procedures related to the capital program;

• Manages the oversight of long term planning related to the capital program;

• Approves the scope of work and budget documents for capital outlay expenditure authorization;

• Directs and approves the development and implementation of quality control procedures for the capital program;

• Directs and approves the development and implementation of design standards for new court facilities;

• Ensures appropriate level of oversight for the capital program;

• Oversees the risk management program;

• Collaborates with the AOC’s Office of Real Estate and Facilities Management to coordinate issues related to operations and maintenance, facility modifications, real estate transactions, and environmental compliance associated with the capital program;

• Provides staff and reports to various committees and subcommittees related to the capital program;

• Represents the judiciary to internal and external customers, stakeholders, and control agencies including other branches of government, on issues pertaining to the capital program;

• Meets with representatives of private firms, other governmental agencies, professional associations, other AOC divisions, and the public in regard to matters affecting the capital program;

• Directs and reviews the establishment of records, and the preparation of required reports in order to assure compliance with state law, governmental regulations, rules of court, and AOC policies and procedures;

• Establishes and implements office policies for the selection, training, professional development, evaluation, and discipline of staff;

• Creates performance and development plans for employees, conducts periodic discussions about progress on performance and development plans, and prepares written performance reviews and discusses with assigned staff;

• Participates and represents the Capital Program office at all meetings and provides support to AOC leadership team on overall management of the AOC; and

• Advises AOC executive office members of progress, key issues, risk and plans for resolution on issues related to the court construction program.
.
Qualifications
Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering, Architecture, Construction Management, or other closely related field. An advanced degree in any of the mentioned fields or Business Administration is preferred.

This executive position also requires at least eight (8) years of successful, progressively responsible experience that includes responsibility for the design and/or construction of new facilities or the planning and coordination of capital projects, including a minimum of four years increasingly responsible management experience.

Certification or License – A valid Certificate of Registration as a licensed architect or professional engineer, or certified construction manager is desirable.
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Other Information
• If you are selected for hire, the Administrative Office of the Courts will require verification of employment eligibility or authorization to legally work in the United States.
.
How To Apply
To ensure consideration of your application for the earliest round of interviews, please apply by 5:00 p.m. on February 22, 2013, however this position will remain open until filled. This position requires the submission of an official AOC application and a resume.

To complete an online application, please click the APPLY NOW button below

OR

To obtain a printed application, please download a copy from our website under the Special Access and Paper Application section OR visit:

Administrative Office of the Courts
455 Golden Gate Avenue, 7th Floor
San Francisco, California 94102-3688
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Pay and Benefits
SALARY RANGE: $11,007 – $14,950 per month
(This salary does not reflect the current 4.62% reduction for one mandatory furlough day per month.)

After setting them in the right direction (as reflected in the latest trial court facilities standards, chapter 17) they’ve been using outside consultants to replace me at about 5 times the cost. My former job, an IS job paid for by OCCM has been eliminated at the AOC.

Here is a novel thought. How about letting each trial court develop their own technology. The JC should direct the AOC to set aside an appropriate amount of money for this purpose. In this way, the trial courts could be innovative and develop case management systems that make sense for them. When CCMS failed, there were no less than five JC/AOC committees overseeing and or managing that disaster, all appointed by the CJ. Now we are going to go down that road for a sixth time with yet another committee with the same “insiders” that brought us CCMS. Astounding. This latest gambit from the crystal palace once again demonstrates what many of have been saying since the SEC report. Nothing has changed at 455 Golden Gate. Nothing.

I don’t know. If I had lobbied against the state audit of CCMS and then announced that CCMS was ready for deployment I think I would have faded into the background when it became evident that the state taxpayers had paid half a billion dollars for absolutely nothing.This latest technology “task force” made up of many of CCMS’s biggest shills and JC/AOC insiders is Exhibit A in the case for bringing democracy to 455 Golden Gate San Francisco. By the way I am also wondering why the AOC is hiring someone to be Director of Capital Programs for almost 15,000 a month lol , when virtually all courthouse construction dollars have been diverted to Long Beach. While the trial courts eat cake and layoff hundreds, the AOC just keeps marching on without regard to their so called “hiring freeze”. You can’t make any of this stuff up. Really.

OBT, you raise a great point about the hiring freeze. My Saturday is now planned. I will drive over to the US Postal service to buy stamps for the first time since last summer and walk into the garage to find my old IBM typewriter I used in college. Rather than send an email to Mr Fincke at the AOC which will of course be directed to Justice Hull anyway, I will just type and mail a letter to J Hull asking for him to please list the number of positions the AOC has filled and or added since they pronounced a hiring freeze. Said information is a perfectly reasonable public request for information since everyone in the branch other than the AOC is laying off employees not looking to hire new ones for 15,000 a month.

We’ve all seen what happens when the JC/AOC gets into contracts involving electronics — well, anything really, construction, you name it. Do they think the public has forgotten CCMS already? These pin heads should be prevented somehow from further wasting public funds! God help us all!

Right you are, Ant. If “leadership” at 455 Golden Gate Avenue ever had an original thought that was actually in the branch’s best interests, it would probably cause the end of the world. Or, at least, for pigs to fly and hell to freeze over, at the same time.

Good catch Wendy. I’m sure all of the trial courts support such a bill .NOT. I wonder if any of them even know anything about it. You think lackeys at the AOC are developing bill language again without their superiors knowing anything about it? lets see where this one goes. No matter how you feel about the issue, this sneeky bill writing stuff by the AOC pisses me off.

One gets that impression by reading the text of the bill. You probably recall that analogy we made in the last post about a 29.00 cassette tape recorder on the judges bench? This carefully crafted legislation makes that nightmare a possible reality.

JCW, next thing ya know, the judges’ will be finding feather dusters and vacuum cleaners set on and behind their benches. Why not? If the honorables can flip a switch, surely they can take on a few more lil chores in and around the courtroom. I believe this is how pointy-headed bureaucrats think. I respect judges and hope they keep their fingers in law books, not poised over a cheap recording device.

Ummm… I hope Assemblymember Wieckowski and his colleagues are addressing the public’s need for open courts, good judges, court clerks, court reporters, and adequate self-help resources. And not a decades old failed cj/jc/aoc agenda.

Yeah, we’re all hoping for that, Justice California. But if the State Legislature’s failure to date to address the problems in judicial branch administration is any indication, hope is all it will ever be.

The level of petty and unwarranted CJP investigations under the thumb of J McConnell is well known, so check out in contrast what happens in the You Tube video that has gone viral entitled ” Flipping the Bird to the Judge “. Fortunately this would never happen in California.

I’m happy to report that Judge Jorge Rodriguez-Chomat shown in the video called Ms. Penelope Soto, also in the video back to court today. She tearfully apologized, admitted she was on xanax and alcohol during her first appearance and the judge vacated her sentence and dismissed the charges, provided that she completed drug rehabilitation.

I suppose the last 5 days gave Ms. Soto plenty to think about and all in all with today’s events, level heads all around prevailed and this young lady won’t be living with a felony on her record for the rest of her life.

[…] AOC sleight of hand. For one, they just couldn’t resist the opportunity to congratulate Jerry Pfab and company on a job well done making new flow charts and developing new processes to get little […]